I. This application claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/214,116, filed on Aug. 19, 2011 entitled, “ROBUST COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL FOR HOME NETWORKS”, assigned to the assignee of the present application.
II. Field of Use
The present application relates to the field of remote management and control of electric or electro-mechanical devices. More specifically, the present application relates to a method and apparatus for network device detection in home networks.
III. Description of the Related Art
Network technology has proliferated over the years, thanks to the ubiquitous nature of the Internet. Millions of home and business networks have been set up to access network resources, such as printers, computers, and other peripheral devices on the network. Such networks typically rely on a router and one or more remote network devices each possessing the necessary hardware, software, and/or firmware to enable communications to the router.
The most familiar type of routers are home and small office routers that simply pass data, such as web pages and email, between the home computers and the owner's cable or DSL modem, which connects to the Internet (ISP). However more sophisticated routers range from enterprise routers, which connect large business or ISP networks up to the powerful core routers that forward data at high speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone.
When a new network is set up, a router is generally installed first. They are typically programmed during the manufacturing process to include a pre-assigned IP address, the most commonly one used today being 192.168.1.1. Wireless routers are additionally pre-programmed with a service-set identifier (SSID) that uniquely identifies the router and, thus, a particular local-area network (LAN). Users must generally change the default SSID to avoid interference with other wireless routers that may be operating nearby.
After a router has been set up, peripheral devices may then be connected to it. In the case of a wireless network, peripheral devices must generally detect the SSID and often be supplied with a password if data signals from the router are encrypted. Users of the network must generally have some knowledge of how to connect their peripheral devices wirelessly to the router.
In some networks, hardware may not take the form of the typical router and peripheral devices. This may be the case, for example, with custom automated outdoor home lighting systems. In this case, the router may take the form of a central control device and peripheral devices may take the form of a slave controller device that is able to communicate wirelessly with the central control device. In these custom networks, traditional ways of slave setup may be non-existent. However, it is still imperative that the central control device detect slave devices in the network.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for automatically detecting slave devices in a network.